Althouse: "Haidt is fearful not only for the country but also for himself. His default intellectual style is provocation."

June 21, 2017

"Haidt is fearful not only for the country but also for himself. His default intellectual style is provocation."

"He used to relish posing questions like, 'List all the good things Hitler did,' and he even invented a game, 'Racist Jeopardy,' in which he names a stereotype and asks students to identify the ethnic group it describes. 'It was very uncomfortable,' he says, adding that he no longer plays the game because he’s worried about running afoul of NYU’s bias-response team. He’s already been the subject of at least two student complaints. 'I’m used to skating on thin ice, but I knew how thick the ice was,' he says. 'Now I have no idea.'"

From "Can Jonathan Haidt Calm the Culture Wars?" in The Chronicle of Higher Education, which passes along Haidt's assurance that he's "never voted for a Republican, never given a penny to a Republican candidate, never worked for a Republican or conservative cause."

Haidt is a social psychologist (at the NYU Business School), and he observes the strong bias against conservatives in psychology departments: "If you say something pleasing to the left about race, gender, immigration, or any other issue, it’s likely to get waved through to publication. People won’t ask hard questions. They like it. They want to believe it... [It's] a real research-legitimacy problem in the social sciences."

69 comments:

Fen said...: I'm glad he reassured everyone he doesn't break bread with those Deplorable Republicans. But he's a witch, burn him.

No quarter for liberal professors. They must live and die by their own rules.; 6/21/17, 7:05 AM
Jaq said...: The left hates truth tellers. Maybe Haidt should think about voting Republican once in a while.; 6/21/17, 7:06 AM
traditionalguy said...: Smart move. He remembers what happened to Socrates. Power over EDU is the last bastion of Marxist Facism, and a snake will attack with violence when cornered.; 6/21/17, 7:08 AM
Jaq said...: The danger started when higher education became so widely available that even the lumpenproletariat were showing up in class. Once that happened, indoctrination of the students trumped their education. I mean, when Harvard and the rest of the Ivies only served children of the elite, it was all well and good to properly educate them to think for themselves. Now it would be too dangerous to the ruling class who get their real education in insanely expensive to us, but cheap at the price to them, prep schools.; 6/21/17, 7:10 AM
Jaq said...: "never voted for a Republican, never given a penny to a Republican candidate, never worked for a Republican or conservative cause." - Jonathon Haidt

But Clinton supporters have convinced me – and here I am being 100% serious – that my safety is at risk if I am seen as supportive of Trump. So I’m taking the safe way out and endorsing Hillary Clinton for president. - Scott Adams; 6/21/17, 7:14 AM
Scott said...: And of course, you have a bias response team that has to justify it's existence. It's a problem in search of a solution, since if there was no bias on campus, they would need to find a new job.

The good news, such as it is, is that the clerisy there are going to have to adapt or die pretty soon. Getting identified with one political party means that this is a good place for the other party to cut costs since Haidt and his colleagues aren't a source of votes or campaign contributions.

Since the government will need the money sooner or later because of an operating deficit, this is a place to balance the budget. Certainly the colleges have done themselves no favors by giving opponents plenty of ammunition with the events at Berkley, Middlebury, and Evergreen.; 6/21/17, 7:15 AM
Fen said...: After reading the article, I take it back. He may be liberal but he is one of us and deserves to be defended. His distancing of himself from "those people" threw me. My mistake.; 6/21/17, 7:16 AM
Richard said...: What can a bias response team do to somebody in his position? Is there a mob in reserve someplace? You know. Maybe four hundred kids taking, say, two four-hour shifts a week waiting for some offense to be pointed out. Three credits and no term papers.; 6/21/17, 7:20 AM
Jaq said...: "those people" threw me. My mistake.

Haidt is alright, that's why they hate him. He came up with the priceless line to describe liberal arguments that applies a lot, just look at ARM for example: "Reject first, ask rhetorical questions later!"; 6/21/17, 7:20 AM
Dad29 said...: real research-legitimacy problem in the social sciences.

No. The problem is that psychology is not a science.; 6/21/17, 7:22 AM
Ralph L said...: Haidt acknowledges that, especially in the wake of Donald Trump’s election, he risks sounding like a guy in Berlin in 1933 insisting that wisdom is to be found on both sides of the political spectrum.
Godwin, call your office.; 6/21/17, 7:27 AM
Mike Sylwester said...: Book TV has an hour-long video of Haidt talking about his book The Righteous Mind.

https://www.c-span.org/video/?305046-1/righteous-mind; 6/21/17, 7:28 AM
Mike Sylwester said...: I should have added that Haidt's talk is superb.; 6/21/17, 7:35 AM
Ann Althouse said...: "His distancing of himself from "those people" threw me."

That was a way to command respect from the people he's trying to speak to.; 6/21/17, 7:50 AM
Mark Caplan said...: I sense a certain tension is building up between Republican state legislatures and governors and the Cultural Marxist departments in academia the Republicans are funding.; 6/21/17, 7:51 AM
Laslo Spatula said...: "That was a way to command respect from the people he's trying to speak to."

If it takes such measures to command respect is any respect given under such circumstances worth having?

The Death Of The Used-Car Salesman.

I am Laslo.; 6/21/17, 7:53 AM
Earnest Prole said...: I’m used to skating on thin ice, but I knew how thick the ice was

I'd say you're skating on hot water.; 6/21/17, 7:54 AM
Laslo Spatula said...: "That was a way to command respect from the people he's trying to speak to."

I have Black friends.

Someone in my family is Gay.

My accountant is Jewish.

I like Chinese Food.

I am Laslo.; 6/21/17, 7:56 AM
roesch/voltaire said...: I found Haidt's idea of five moral systems that consider loyalty and respect for authority as moral concepts needed to form working communities encouraged by religions interesting reading for my students, and had my students take his online test at YourMorals to test out his claims as they related to themselves. I also have them read Frans B.M. de Waals works, which calls into question Haidt's claims by pointing out that animals show empathy or altruistic tendencies without religion. It does seem that one common moral claim is the Golden Rule, while the others are not as universal, but it starts an interesting reflection. It becomes more interesting when engineers have to consider ethical obligations of the professional code that maybe at odds with what their companies or bosses demand.; 6/21/17, 7:56 AM
Clyde said...: It's a thin line between love and Haidt.; 6/21/17, 7:57 AM
traditionalguy said...: Camille Paglia still has a job, so far. Look for her Radio interview with Hannity on Brietbart. She has truth nailed.; 6/21/17, 8:02 AM
Chris N said...: You know, when you make knee-jerk assumptions, claim to speak for an entire group or cause, misspell the people you quote...it actually hurts the cause, or reveals something important about the cause, and it certainly reveals something about yourself.

Despite what true-believers believe, I believe the world isn't made better by zeal, but rather it's kept running by people who are able to repel the ideologues, religio-political kooks, religious nuts, and the desire to burn everything down (the last, especially, lives in each of us).

Judge an argument by its quality, and if you haven't fully understood, think again.; 6/21/17, 8:02 AM
Dude1394 said...: Democrats are fascists.; 6/21/17, 8:05 AM
Jaq said...: I also have them read Frans B.M. de Waals works, which calls into question Haidt's claims by pointing out that animals show empathy or altruistic tendencies without religion.

You do understand that your point is completely irrelevant to his argument. You are indulging cargo cult thinking and not doing your students any favors by seeking to indoctrinate them in your point of view using your authority in combination with deficient arguments. I don't think that Haidt argues that religion comes before the underlying emotional constellation. I think the is your purblind interpretation. If I was in your class, I would give you the opportunity to give me a 'D' by pointing out your errors in more detail.; 6/21/17, 8:05 AM
Jaq said...: misspell the people you quote...it actually hurts the cause,

Judge an argument by its quality, and if you haven't fully understood, think again

Orthography is the great illuminator of truth and reason.; 6/21/17, 8:07 AM
Darrell said...: You have to shuck and jive for the Left if you want to stay out of the re-education camps. Got it.; 6/21/17, 8:08 AM
Anonymous said...: Only non-progs need to be "provoked" and "challenged" out of their narrow-minded beliefs. Progs are already right about everything.

A few years back I was pleased to hear from one of my kids that one of her profs had assigned The Righteous Mind. Alas, it became clear from her description of the lecture and discussion that her prog prof did not understand it.; 6/21/17, 8:20 AM
grackle said...: No. The problem is that psychology is not a science.

Those people involved with psychology that were trying to make psychology into a science faded fast from the scene during the sixties. Psychology(and sociology) went from being philosophies looking for scientific credibility by adopting and creating nomenclature and procedures that sounded like science and gave the appearance of science – to a closed system of confirmation bias.

The social “scientists” started out attempting to get the same credibility as the physical sciences. What psychology and sociology have devolved into are Lefty tools used for political warfare against the right. Meanwhile, the psychologists and sociologists keep publishing intellectual garbage – as discussed in this article:

Simulations show that for most study designs and settings, it is more likely for a research claim to be false than true. Moreover, for many current scientific fields, claimed research findings may often be simply accurate measures of the prevailing bias.

Garbage in, garbage out.

The same viewpoint is even infecting the physical sciences:

A former researcher at Amgen Inc has found that many basic studies on cancer -- a high proportion of them from university labs -- are unreliable, with grim consequences for producing new medicines in the future.

Even the Lefty NYT has taken note of the problem:

Now, a painstaking yearslong effort to reproduce 100 studies published in three leading psychology journals has found that more than half of the findings did not hold up when retested.

I haven’t trusted what the Lefties are pumping out of academia since the sixties, which is when all this shit started being sold as fudge.

A team of Columbia University biologists has retracted a 2013 Nature paper on the molecular pathways underlying Alzheimer’s disease, the second retraction from the group after a postdoc faked data.

Conclusion: The fields of psychology and sociology as presented by today’s academia are hopelessly compromised and cannot be believed.; 6/21/17, 8:21 AM
Earnest Prole said...: That was a way to command respect from the people he's trying to speak to.

It’s similar to the qualifying phrases Camille Paglia would use to freeze her prey before going in for the kill:

“As a Democrat who voted for Jesse Jackson in the 1988 presidential primary, I . . .”

“As someone who voted for Clinton twice — and would vote for him a third time because I support most of his policies — I . . .”

“As an Amazon with the brain of a pre-Stonewall gay man, I . . .”

A Brief Autobiography of Camille Paglia, as Told Through Introductory Appositive Phrases In Her Online Column; 6/21/17, 8:22 AM
Anonymous said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 6/21/17, 8:27 AM
Laslo Spatula said...: As a White Male I realize eating Watermelon does not bring me any closer to the Black Community.

Nor does eating Fried Chicken.

If I bring the Grape Drank the Black Community will drink it, but they will not think differently of me for having brought it.

Reciting Jay-Z lyrics does not make for more common ground.

My watching Black-Dude-ravaging-White-Girl porn will not impress them.

They will not be impressed by my Hair-Shirt.

My "I Voted For Bernie" bumper sticker will not command their respect.

Maybe I'm doing something wrong.

I am Laslo.; 6/21/17, 8:27 AM
Anonymous said...: Virtually Unknown: You do understand that your point is completely irrelevant to his argument.

Yeah, I noticed that, too. Guess my kid's prof isn't the only prof in the country assigning books he doesn't understand.; 6/21/17, 8:29 AM
Chris N said...: Virtually Unknown-

Whom is speaking to whom?

Lazlo

-'Excuse me, stewardess, I speak Jive'

-It's gay that you know families with gays in them.

-Oy ve!

-Mrs Fong says hi. Since you ordered the number 9, and 9 is lucky, you have common destiny to become aware of the intersectionality of bodies in space against systemic oppression. This is your chance.; 6/21/17, 8:36 AM
Gedwardo said...: "...They want to believe it... [It's] a real research-legitimacy problem in the social sciences."

"social sciences"? it is a problem with most liberal viewpoints.; 6/21/17, 9:07 AM
Fernandinande said...: He’s already been the subject of at least two student complaints.

He's not very controversial if that's all the pushback he's gotten.

gcochran: "Wanting something to be true doesn’t make it true – but sometimes, desperately wanting something to be true pays off. ...
On the other hand, in the social sciences, this seems to be the dominant theme: most of their tenets are what the practitioners wish were true. So far, no New World, no three laws as byproducts."

+

Haidt: "Both Darwin and I say that most of human morality was caused by natural selection operating at the level of the individual. The debate is whether group-level selection GS) played ANY role, or whether everything about our moral/political/religious lives can be explained straightforwardly, without contortions, at the level of the individual. To put it in Dawkins’ terms: I fully agree with Dawkins that the genes are the replicators, and that organisms can be understood as the vehicles by which replicators make copies of themselves. I like the selfish gene perspective very much.
..."; 6/21/17, 9:16 AM
Michael K said...: "He remembers what happened to Socrates. "

He might be the only one there who does.; 6/21/17, 9:19 AM
Fernandinande said...: grackle said...
Now, a painstaking yearslong effort to reproduce 100 studies published in three leading psychology journals has found that more than half of the findings did not hold up when retested.

"Remember that study that found that most psychology studies were wrong? Yeah, that study was wrong."

Abstract (04 Mar 2016)
"A paper from the Open Science Collaboration (Research Articles, 28 August 2015, aac4716) attempting to replicate 100 published studies suggests that the reproducibility of psychological science is surprisingly low. We show that this article contains three statistical errors and provides no support for such a conclusion. Indeed, the data are consistent with the opposite conclusion, namely, that the reproducibility of psychological science is quite high."

I'm no fan of a lot of psychology and sociology and 180 degrees anti-PC, but the people who keep parading the "100 studies-most can't be reproduced" factoid are doing exactly the same thing that they're criticizing, namely picking and choosing the results they like and ignoring results they don't like.

At any rate the medical research problem is worse and far more consequential.; 6/21/17, 9:35 AM
William said...: All my life, I have heard women bitch about clothes that are uncomfortable or unflattering. Muslim women are the exception. In the west, you never hear a Muslim woman complain about how unpleasant a hijab is on humid day, or how stupid it is to wear restrictive clothes during athletic events. They know better.......You'd think that there would be many professors who oppose these uncomfortable restrictions on their freedom of thought, but there seem to be damned few. I suppose they know better......I read the article with interest and hope, but Professor Haidt is probably just the equivalent of Hirsi Alli, that Muslim woman who gets banned from speaking at colleges........He did take care to not wander too far off the reservation so maybe he will be spared. But probably not.; 6/21/17, 9:39 AM
roesch/voltaire said...: Yes Haidt's evolutionary theory calls into question our faith in reason and privileges the intuitive. His moral systems, he claims, fits human nature, but he also points out that institutions like religion, family values facilitate cooperation by constraining individualism, which can weaken a society. Are these morals part of our evolution, or are they as Waals claims not exclusive to humans? Using this material in class makes for interesting debates.But at $30,000 a speech, of which he gives many, he seems to be doing fine in this time where everyone plays the victim card from Trump to snowflakes who want safe zones.; 6/21/17, 9:40 AM
Fernandinande said...: roesch/voltaire said...
I also have them read Frans B.M. de Waals works, which calls into question Haidt's claims by pointing out that animals show empathy or altruistic tendencies without religion.

Haidt doesn't claim that morality comes from religion, he claims that morality or moral behaviors, of which religion is a subset, evolved via natural selection, as per his quote above.; 6/21/17, 9:44 AM
rhhardin said...: Autobahns, Volkswagen, aircraft and missle design.; 6/21/17, 9:47 AM
Fernandinande said...: roesch/voltaire said...
Are these morals part of our evolution, or are they as Waals claims not exclusive to humans?

That question doesn't make any sense. "Morality" (moral behavior) is not exclusive to humans because it is part of our evolution, just as it is part of the evolution of other animals.; 6/21/17, 9:49 AM
Henry said...: From the article: Jason Stanley, a philosopher at Yale University who calls Heterodox Academy a "scaremongering rage machine" that targets "oppressed minorities who are vastly underrepresented in the academy."

Scaremongering hate machine?

What is more scaremongering than accusing your opponents of racism?

Welcome to the bonfire of the gaslighters.; 6/21/17, 9:52 AM
CJinPA said...: "Can Jonathan Haidt Calm the Culture Wars?"

Misleading headline, suggesting there is actually a two-way "war" underway on college campuses, rather than intellectual genocide.; 6/21/17, 9:54 AM
Henry said...: That was a way to command respect from the people he's trying to speak to.

It's probably also completely accurate.; 6/21/17, 9:54 AM
Henry said...: Misleading headline, suggesting there is actually a two-way "war" underway on college campuses, rather than intellectual genocide.

Or suicide as it were.; 6/21/17, 9:55 AM
grackle said...: … people who keep parading the "100 studies-most can't be reproduced" factoid are doing exactly the same thing that they're criticizing …

From the Slate article:

Yeah, I know, 39 percent sounds really low—but it’s about what social scientists should expect, given the fact that errors could occur either in the original studies or the replicas, says King.

So … King, apparently expressing the conventional wisdom within the social sciences community, believes 39% is fine. Imagine, readers, if a chemist were to make such a statement. Disbelief, dismay and ridicule would be forthcoming from his professional colleagues.

If King is correct in that 39% should be acceptable then that only proves my point. A “science” that cannot be validated because of its very nature is not in any sense of the word a “science.” The correct term is “pseudo-science.” It’s today’s version of phrenology.; 6/21/17, 10:10 AM
Hammond X. Gritzkofe said...: "...never worked for a ... conservative cause."

Nothing must be left unchanged! That is our core principle. If it exists, it must be destroyed.; 6/21/17, 10:21 AM
Jaq said...: Are these morals part of our evolution, or are they as Waals claims not exclusive to humans?

WFT does that even fucking mean? I can't believe this guy uses his position as an instructor at college level, apparently, to push his politics on his students when he is capable of writing that kind of nonsense.; 6/21/17, 10:46 AM
Fen said...: Althouse: "That was a way to command respect from the people he's talking to"

Right. I do that myself. Tailor to audience, so I should have considered it before damning him. I got sloppy.; 6/21/17, 11:37 AM
Jaq said...: Maybe everybody should take a stint for a while reading and writing requirements for computer software. It develops a keen eye for nonsense that "sounds good." The failure to spot nonsense is punished by months of excruciating repentance in the form of long hours correcting mistakes.; 6/21/17, 11:45 AM
Fen said...: "By the people willing to repel the political nuts, religious looks and those who want to burn everything to the ground"

Don't get too righteous there. If he's a liberal professor he bears some responsibility for the campus culture that silences WrongThought. And thus it's not unreasonable to hope the Dr Frankensteins get mailed by the creatures they made.

Althouse was the rare exception because she champions free speech. Haidt appears to be another such rare bird.

"I did not commit my men to your cause because I didn't think we would find another king in my lifetime" - Lord Mandalay; 6/21/17, 11:49 AM
Fen said...: Mauled not mailed. LOL

Now I'm visualizing the Monster striding into FedEx with a struggling professor over his shoulder. Thank you autocorrect made in China.; 6/21/17, 11:52 AM
Fen said...: Grrr! Haidt. To Bavaria. Raaar! COD. No bubble wrap.; 6/21/17, 12:04 PM
exiledonmainstreet, green-eyed devil said...: traditionalguy said...
Camille Paglia still has a job, so far. Look for her Radio interview with Hannity on Brietbart."

Paglia shields herself by endorsing candidates like Kamela Harris and Jill Stein, who advocate for the same policies Paglia bitches about.

Either she favors leftist candidates with no shot at winning or she strongly endorses the Dem nominee (in 1992 and 2008), only to be disappointed later on - when they're in office and actually act the way everyone but Paglia assumed they would act.; 6/21/17, 12:14 PM
chuck said...: "never voted for a Republican, never given a penny to a Republican candidate, never worked for a Republican or conservative cause."

Slow learner. Folks outside of academia are much quicker to adapt to a changed environment.; 6/21/17, 12:34 PM
Earnest Prole said...: That was a way to command respect from the people he's trying to speak to.

It's also the thing David Brooks was doing, though you complained about it in that instance.; 6/21/17, 12:39 PM
Saint Croix said...: Heterodox Academy has ranked the top universities in the USA for free thought and diversity of opinion.

It is a shitty report card! And we're not grading on a curve.

A

University of Chicago

B

College of William and Mary
George Mason University
University of Tennessee

C

Carnegie Mellon
University of Florida
University of Mississippi
University of North Carolina
University of Utah
University of Virgina

D

Arizona State
University of Maryland
Purdue
Washington University (St. Louis)
Oregon State

F

91 schools down here.; 6/21/17, 1:20 PM
Fernandinande said...: grackle said...
If King is correct in that 39% should be acceptable then that only proves my point.

He didn't say it's acceptable, he said quite the opposite:

Of course, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be concerned with reproducibility in science. “We should be obsessed with these questions,” says King. “They are incredibly important. But it isn’t true that all social psychologists are making stuff up.”

http://science.sciencemag.org/content/351/6277/1037.2.full
"Only 47% of the original studies were successfully replicated ...MLP’s much more powerful method produced a much more heartening result: A full 85% of the original studies were successfully replicated."
(but don't quote the 85% (or 39%) w/o reading the article).; 6/21/17, 1:36 PM
Bad Lieutenant said...: Earnest Prole said...
That was a way to command respect from the people he's trying to speak to.

It's also the thing David Brooks was doing, though you complained about it in that instance.

6/21/17, 12:39 PM

Didn't Aristotle call this pandering in Rhetoric?; 6/21/17, 1:40 PM
Fernandinande said...: Henry said...
Scaremongering hate machine?

I think this is that:

"Examples of entrenched yet questionable orthodoxies include:

-- Humans are a blank slate, and “human nature” does not exist.

-- All differences between human groups are caused by differential treatment of those groups, or by differential media portrayals of group members.

-- Social stereotypes do not correspond to any real differences.

However, if academics were predominantly conservative or libertarian, a very different set of unjustified orthodoxies would likely be prevalent."

Also some data about the leftward drift of academic politics at that link.; 6/21/17, 1:50 PM
grackle said...: I said: If King is correct in that 39% should be acceptable then that only proves my point.

He didn't say it's acceptable, he said quite the opposite:

Of course, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be concerned with reproducibility in science. “We should be obsessed with these questions,” says King. “They are incredibly important. But it isn’t true that all social psychologists are making stuff up.”

… (but don't quote the 85% (or 39%) w/o reading the article).

Oh, I read the article, if you are referring to the original King article. I also read the rebuttal. I didn’t see anything in either to disprove my point. Quite the opposite. That King says he’s NOT saying what he DOES in fact say is not particularly convincing to me.

Here’s an example of a false assumption taken from the article that claims to debunk the study:

More generally, there is no such thing as exact replication. All replications differ in innumerable ways from original studies. They are conducted in different facilities, in different weather, with different experimenters, with different computers and displays, in different languages, at different points in history, and so on.

Bullshit. “Exact replication” is not only possible but replication is DEMANDED by the true sciences: The physical sciences. Any chemistry research that cannot be replicated is discarded – and rightly so. I repeat: Any “science” that cannot reliably validated by replication is a pseudo-science.; 6/21/17, 2:13 PM
Roger Sweeny said...: I think King is right about no exact replications. What you want to know is what things can change and still give you the same result. In chemistry, "in different facilities, in different weather, with different experimenters, with different computers and displays, in different languages, at different points in history" don't matter. You'll still get the same result (well, maybe weather will change things some times). That's one thing that makes chemistry results important.

If all sorts of things will change your result, it may not be very important. It may be trivial and ignorable. The problem comes when it is instead presented as a profound truth about human existence.; 6/21/17, 2:57 PM
Sebastian said...: "Haidt's assurance that he's "never voted for a Republican, never given a penny to a Republican candidate, never worked for a Republican or conservative cause."" Sorry, Haidt. This won't do you any good. Yeah, we'll stand up for you anyway, we deplorables. But don't kid yourself: there is no ice. They'll nail your ass when they have a chance--you know, the Jason Stanleys of academia and his red guards, the kind of "philosopher" at Yale University who calls Heterodox Academy a "scaremongering rage machine" that targets "oppressed minorities who are vastly underrepresented in the academy." Consider yourself warned.

@CJ: ""Can Jonathan Haidt Calm the Culture Wars?" Misleading headline, suggesting there is actually a two-way "war" underway on college campuses, rather than intellectual genocide." True. So the answer to the question is: no. At least as long as the left is winning, there is nothing to calm. The right is just a "rage machine," you see, and racist of course--hence it must be destroyed.; 6/21/17, 3:44 PM
Fernandinande said...: grackle said...
Bullshit. “Exact replication” is not only possible but replication is DEMANDED by the true sciences:

You're not actually trained in any hard sciences, are you?

Nothing people do a lab is ever exactly the same as what someone else did somewhere else. It might be close, closer than the accuracy of your instruments, but it's never exactly the same; QM if nothing else.

I supposed you don't consider physics to be a "true science":

History and progress on accurate measurements of the Planck constant
"Since new measurements periodically led to changes in its accepted value and the corresponding SI units, it is helpful to see why there were bumps in the road and where the different branch lines of research joined in the effort.
...
A final summary of the recent h determinations of the last two decades shows how history keeps repeating itself; there is again a question of whether there is a shift in the newest results, albeit at uncertainties that are many orders of magnitude less than the original experiments."

No exact duplication. Sigh, it's so sad.; 6/21/17, 4:47 PM
Fernandinande said...: I'm so completely obsessed with the lameness of the idea of "exact duplication" that I want to kill some really stupid people.

Or, to just point out that measuring almost anything involving humans will give different answers in even the simplest cases:
- height: taller in the morning.
- weight: more after eating, less after sweating.
- reaction time: depends on stimulus, time of day, affect/mood.; 6/21/17, 5:16 PM
jeyi said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 6/21/17, 5:49 PM
jeyi said...: As lame as Prof. Haidt may seem to us neo-fascist "intellectuals", if you need for medical reasons to induce projectile-vomiting immediately, check out the obliviousness of politico-linguistics programming guru, Berkeley Prof. Emeritus George Lakoff (indeed, a student and protegé of Noam Chomsky), just call up this espece de merde, as we say in Lay-Ocean.

I guess we should be grateful that at least Dr. Lakoff hasn't published —as did his equally stellar U.C. colleague Robert Reich— a WaPo column or op-ed deconstructing the Milo riots there as a false flag operation stage-managed by the Trump gang. Here's the Lakoff panegyric in the 2 may 2017 issue of "Berkeleyside". If Blogger surprises the linked URL below, find your way there via Google.

http://www.berkeleyside.com/2017/05/02/berkeley-author-george-lakoff-says-dont-underestimate-trump/; 6/21/17, 5:54 PM
grackle said...: You're not actually trained in any hard sciences, are you?

Personal anecdote is useless in debate. I try to avoid it. Argue on the merits instead of issuing ad hominem.

Nothing people do a lab is ever exactly the same as what someone else did somewhere else. It might be close, closer than the accuracy of your instruments, but it's never exactly the same; QM if nothing else.

I supposed you don't consider physics to be a "true science":

The fact that the examination of small particles is unpredictable and counter-intuitive down beyond the molecular level and presents some unique problems in quantification and measurement has no real bearing on this debate. The fact that the commentor has to resort to this inept example is a display of weakness in his argument.

But the social sciences are not particle physics. Nether is chemistry. The social sciences are lefty weapons against the right masquerading as science. They are pseudo-science recast in the role of semi-scientific virtue-signaling. They are scientific bullshit, propaganda dressed up with scientific-sounding terminology – controlled by the Left, directed by the Left and subject to the distortions to which a closed system inevitably falls into.; 6/21/17, 6:37 PM